Occupy Wall Street One Year Later: Workers' Pay Dropped, CEOs' Soared

Here, the top stories from the week that illustrate the space dividing Americans.

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Finance: It's Good to Be King

The big banks know that a years-long crisis in their sector, made all the more plain this past year with a new trading scandal at JPMorgan Chase (JPM), means that astronomical bonuses for their top executives can create public relations problems. And according to a new report in The Wall Street Journal, the banks are planning on reducing 2012's end-of-year bounties, but remain intent on doing so "without drastically reducing the executives' take-home pay."

The drive to pay-big-by-any-means comes even as revenue is down across the finance industry for the first half of the year, including at Chase (CCF) and Citibank (C). But those at the bottom are feeling it. Layoffs across the finance sector stood at roughly 17,500 halfway through 2012, according to FINS.com.

Women: Still Stuck at 77 Percent

Seventy-seven is the saddest number for American women. As those familiar with the gender wage gap in America know, women make 77 percent of what men do for the exact same work. The figure has been in that neighborhood for decades, and according to new research by the US Census Bureau, no progress was made last year in erasing this disparity: The average income for women working full-time jobs was $37,118 in 2011, as compared to $48,202 for men. And "the problem is worse for African-American women and Latinas," according to a statement by Linda D. Hallman, the executive director of the American Association of University Women, in the International Business Times.

What's being done to ensure that gender doesn't determine pay? Republicans have blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would require greater transparency about salaries. And since President Barack Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, which allows women to claim back pay if they find out that they were paid less than their male counterparts, the figure hasn't moved from 77 percent. In fact, it's been stuck there since 2005.

This article was written by Dan Fastenberg and originally appeared on AOL Jobs.